Introducing affordable and experimental ideas of living with flowers and plants weekly. I live in the city of Chicago. The long gray brutally cold weather doesn't help my home being lively and cheerful. One solution is to display flowers and plants in the house, however often times they are very pricey. I will purchase flowers and plants weekly under $10 to dress up my house creatively.

Monday, April 18, 2011

011: Baby Shower

I need to apologize that this week's WFT is waaaaay over budget... That's because I had the privilege to be a co-host of my dear friend's baby shower. There were four of us hosting this shower and I got to take the decoration part of it:) My idea was to bring spring elements with an earthy feel into the decor for the new arrival. I made three major pieces; Crane Chandelier, Ivy Wreath and Landscape Centerpiece.

The Crane Chandelier idea was created with a series accidents. I knew that I wanted to use Cherry branches that I saw at Cristine Noelle Design when I went in for the first time. One of the co-hosts mentioned that her mom made a garland of baby t-shirts and socks for her baby shower and I was going to incorporate that into my branch chandelier. When I went to the florist to pick up some of the branches, I realized that they weren't structurally sound enough to hang clothes, so that idea went down the drain. Then my husband came up with an idea of hanging some origami cranes, which are super light. That was brilliant! That's something that I can create with my eyes closed (literally) and super airy looking as I was envisioning. So here are some pics of the final product and additional branches with one crane that I put in a vase at the entry. The straw-looking ribbon that I purchased for the last week's WFT came in handy to hang the entire chandelier from the ceiling to accentuate the natural look that I was going for.

The wreath and the centerpiece were sort of twins. They needed to be cohesive to tie the entire decor together. I don't know why I wanted ivy so much for the wreath from the beginning but I wanted them to look like a scene from Hansel and Gretel, so that was my inspiration for both of these pieces. Since the baby is going to be a boy, I thought Muscari is appropriate for the main flower for the centerpiece. I had been looking all over the city for potted Muscari for the past week but couldn't find one anywhere. So while I was at the florist to pick up the branches, I asked if they could get me two pots of Muscari along with a pot of white Ranunculus, freshly cut Ivy vines for the wreath and some "sheet moss". I was so happy that I could order everything at one place and didn't need to worry about running all over the city. But things don't usually go as you planned, right? They couldn't get the white Rananculus but got me Muscari, Ivy and "sheet moss". When I went to pick them up the day before the party, I found out that the Muscari that they got me was way too young and I couldn't see its blue color at all. I felt really bad but I needed to ask them to take them back as well and grabbed the rest of the items. My mind went blank when I realized that I pretty much didn't have anything at this point. So I basically ran around the city trying to find something I could use and luckily I found a white Rananculus and a blue Hyacinth for a substitute to Muscari at a hardware store. I went back home and was going to start making the centerpiece. Then I realized that the "sheet moss" was literally moss that was adhered to a sheet. What I thought "sheet moss" was natural moss that I got for my "Moss Ball" project that comes "like" a sheet, not literally on a sheet... Great. Now I had to bring that back as well. I felt really sorry for the florist, who tried their hardest to satisfy my request but I only kept the Ivy from the whole bunch. Trust me, if it was for myself, I would have worked around with what I got but it's totally different when you make something for someone else. Anyhow, long story short, I got all the materials I need including live moss from the florist when I returned the "sheet moss". And this was about 4 hours until the party. Then I put everything together super fast. For both of the pieces, I added natural moss with some edible mushrooms from a grocery store. They made them very earthy! The good thing was that I had a vision of what these two pieces should look like, so it went very smoothly except that my son picked up some dirt off the floor and ate it!! I had to shove a wet paper towel into his mouth and clean it. It was a very memorable moment to realize that I am truly the mother of a boy.

The party went very well. I'm happy that the mother-to-be seemed to like everything. Other hosts did an awesome job cooking yummy food and baking a delicious desert. It was a great learning experience for how to decorate a party with flowers. I was exhausted afterwords but it's so worth seeing my friend enjoying it:)